Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Health Education England, London, UK.
BMJ Open. 2024 Feb 10;14(2):e080334. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-080334.
Preservation of brain health is an urgent priority for the world's ageing population. The evidence base for brain health optimisation strategies is rapidly expanding, but clear recommendations have been limited by heterogeneity in measurement of brain health outcomes. We performed a scoping review to systematically evaluate brain health measurement in the scientific literature to date, informing development of a core outcome set.
Scoping review.
Medline, APA PsycArticles and Embase were searched through until 25 January 2023.
Studies were included if they described brain health evaluation methods in sufficient detail in human adults and were in English language.
Two reviewers independently screened titles, abstracts and full texts for inclusion and extracted data using Covidence software.
From 6987 articles identified by the search, 727 studies met inclusion criteria. Study publication increased by 22 times in the last decade. Cohort study was the most common study design (n=609, 84%). 479 unique methods of measuring brain health were identified, comprising imaging, cognitive, mental health, biological and clinical categories. Seven of the top 10 most frequently used brain health measurement methods were imaging based, including structural imaging of grey matter and hippocampal volumes and white matter hyperintensities. Cognitive tests such as the trail making test accounted for 286 (59.7%) of all brain health measurement methods.
The scientific literature surrounding brain health has increased exponentially, yet measurement methods are highly heterogeneous across studies which may explain the lack of clinical translation. Future studies should aim to develop a selected group of measures that should be included in all brain health studies to aid interstudy comparison (core outcome set), and broaden from the current focus on neuroimaging outcomes to include a range of outcomes.
维护大脑健康是全球老龄化人口的当务之急。优化大脑健康策略的证据基础正在迅速扩大，但由于大脑健康结果的测量方法存在异质性，明确的建议一直受到限制。我们进行了范围综述，以系统评估迄今为止科学文献中大脑健康测量的情况，为核心结局集的制定提供信息。
范围综述。
截至 2023 年 1 月 25 日，通过 Medline、APA PsycArticles 和 Embase 进行了搜索。
如果研究详细描述了人类成年人的大脑健康评估方法，并且是英文的，则纳入研究。
两名评审员独立筛选标题、摘要和全文以确定纳入标准，并使用 Covidence 软件提取数据。
从搜索中确定的 6987 篇文章中，有 727 篇研究符合纳入标准。在过去十年中，研究出版物增加了 22 倍。队列研究是最常见的研究设计（n=609，84%）。确定了 479 种独特的大脑健康测量方法，包括影像学、认知、心理健康、生物学和临床类别。使用最频繁的前 10 种大脑健康测量方法中有 7 种是基于影像学的，包括灰质和海马体积的结构影像学以及白质高信号。认知测试，如追踪测试，占所有大脑健康测量方法的 286 种（59.7%）。
围绕大脑健康的科学文献呈指数级增长，但研究之间的测量方法高度异质，这可能解释了缺乏临床转化的原因。未来的研究应旨在开发一组选定的措施，这些措施应包含在所有大脑健康研究中，以帮助研究之间的比较（核心结局集），并从当前对神经影像学结果的关注扩展到包括一系列结果。
